Study Desk

But Rabshakeh said to them, "Has my ruler sent me to speak these words to your ruler and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall? They are sure to suffer with you, eating and drinking their own body waste."

Then I will come and take you away to a land like your own land. It is a land of grain and new wine. It is a land of bread and grape-fields and olive trees and honey. There you will live and not die." But do not listen to Hezekiah when he lies to you, saying, "The Lord will save us."

But the people were quiet. They did not answer him a word. For Hezekiah had told them, "Do not answer him."

And they said to him, "Hezekiah says, ‘This day is a day of trouble, sharp words, and shame. For children have come to be born, but there is no strength to give birth to them.

They have thrown their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, made from wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.

But I know when you sit down, go out, and come in. And I know how you speak in anger against Me.

Hezekiah answered, "It is easy for the shadow to go ten steps farther. But let the shadow turn back ten steps."

Then Manasseh put the object he had made for Asherah into the house of the Lord. But the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, "I have chosen this house and Jerusalem from all the families of Israel. Here I will put My name forever.

I will not make the feet of Israel travel any more from the land I gave to their fathers. But they must obey all that I have told them, and all the Law that My servant Moses told to them."

But they did not listen. Manasseh led them to sin more than the nations whom the Lord destroyed from in front of the people of Israel.

But do not make them tell you how the money was spent that was given to them. For they are honest men."

But tell the king of Judah who sent you to ask of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord God of Israel says about the words you have heard.

"You heard how I spoke against this place and against its people. I said that they should be destroyed and laid waste. They should be hated and destroyed. But when you heard this, you were sorry in your heart. You put away your pride before the Lord. You have torn your clothes and cried before Me, and I have heard you," says the Lord.

The religious leaders of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem. But they ate bread without yeast among their brothers.

But this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem in the eighteenth year of King Josiah.

But the Lord did not stop from being very angry against Judah. Because Manasseh had done many things to make Him angry.

Pharaoh Neco made Josiah's son Eliakim king in the place of his father Josiah. And he changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away to Egypt, where he died.

So Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh. But he taxed the land to give Pharaoh the money he wanted. He took the silver and gold from the people of the land, from each one by the amount of tax he was made to pay. And he gave it to Pharaoh Neco.

Then the city was broken into. All the men of war ran away during the night between the two walls beside the king's garden. The Babylonians were all around the city, but the men left by the way of the Arabah.

But the captain of the soldiers left behind some of the very poor people of the land to take care of the vines and to plow the fields.